


To Hold The World

by Walutahanga



Series: gather in your bleeding hands your net again [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, Family Issues, Gen, Sibling Love, Siblings, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-25 17:18:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14981879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Walutahanga/pseuds/Walutahanga
Summary: The way of the Jedi doesn't leave room for biological family. Nevertheless, they exist.





	To Hold The World

**Author's Note:**

> This may not make any sense without reading the previous fic 'No Net Strong Enough'. Basically it's about Obi-Wan's brother grieving the boy that went away to be a Jedi and never came back. This is Obi-Wan's perspective of the situation.

Despite the rumors, it's not taboo for Jedi to seek out their parents. 

Among the Corps, it was almost expected. Many rejected as Knights found solace in re-connecting with parents or siblings and the Temple turned a blind eye so long as it was discrete. Among the Knights, some Masters frowned upon the practice but others advocated it as a rite of passage. 

"Clear the air, it does," Yaddle claimed. "Questions some Jedi have, about their birth. By receiving answers, let go they can." 

Qui-Gon had been firmly of the latter category. Though he'd never been able to meet his own parents - dead, Obi-Wan assumes, in some sort of accident or illness - Qui-Gon insisted it was important for Knights to understand the sacrifice made by ordinary families so the Jedi could continue. He said too many forgot the Order existed on the combined will and generosity of the Republic, not the other way round. 

Obi-Wan suspects the sentiment skirts dangerously close to attachment, but after Qui-Gon's death he decides to honor his Master's beliefs anyway. 

* * *

It is a disaster. 

Obi-Wan's parents he likes well enough. They're decent people; kindly and hard-working, and nearly glowing with pride when they look at him. Their affection is unsettling but Obi-Wan tries to accept it gracefully and in turn they don't push him for more than he is comfortable giving. 

His brother is the problem. Owa-San (Owen, Obi-Wan calls him the first time he steps off the ship and Owa-San's face lights up _"You remembered!"_ ) is a tangle of longing, confusion and hope that Obi-Wan has no idea what to do with. It's too much like his own feelings for Qui-Gon early in his apprenticeship, like looking in a mirror of his most vulnerable, desperate time. It doesn't help that Owa-San is mildly Force-sensitive like their parents, and while he would never be strong enough to be a Jedi, together with the blood-connection it's more than enough to pry at the cracks in Obi-Wan's walls. 

It's exhausting for Obi-Wan, having to hold his shields so carefully in place, and it's almost a relief when Owa-San's emotions slip from joy to hurt to disappointment, and then a chilly dislike.  _Almost_  a relief, because Owa-San's feelings are not so simply resolved. He'd loved the child Obi-Wan had once been, and that love remains even as he begins to resent the man Obi-Wan has become. 

"You must learn to let that loss go," Obi-Wan tries to tell him, after a sleepless night of Owa-San's dreams bleeding into his, of two boys running through an endless field of green. 

"Like our parents let you go?" Owa-San snaps back, the rejection unexpectedly stinging. Is it truly so hard to accept that Obi-Wan has changed? Even if he'd stayed, he wouldn't be that child anymore. Is this attachment, to cling so fiercely to the past, the point of willfull blindness to the present? 

If this is attachment, Obi-Wan wants nothing to do with it. 

* * *

"Who is that?" Anakin asks, when he catches Obi-Wan looking at some holo-photos. They're of Owa-San's wedding; he looks happy, enraptured by his blonde laughing bride. "He looks like you." 

"I suppose he does," Obi-Wan admits. "He's my biological brother." 

"You have a brother?" Anakin's emotions sieze in a complicated snarl of jealousy and surprise. Winding through it is a silvery thread of curiosity. "What's he like?" 

"I don't know," Obi-Wan admits. "I've only met him once and we didn't get along." 

"You have to know something. He's your brother." 

"Biological connection don't mean we have anything in common except genetics." 

"Yeah, but..." Anakin fumbles to argue. "You have photos." 

Obi-Wan pauses, unwilling to concede the point. "He sent them. It seemed polite to look through them before deleting them." 

Anakin's mouth curls unhappily. "So that's it then. You're just going to pretend he doesn't exist. I'm sure it makes your life much neater and tidier that way." 

The ensuing argument is ugly, but sadly not the ugliest Obi-Wan will ever have with his former Padawan. Anakin knows entirely too much about him, what soft places to aim for, without quite understanding how hard he's hitting. (Which makes them equal; Obi-Wan frequently misjudges the effect of his words on Anakin, never sure what will pass him by entirely and what will burrow deep and fester). 

* * *

After the war, after Vader, after.... everything, Obi-Wan has a quiet word to Bail Organa. 

"I need to ask you a favor," he says, aware that he's pressing on the mountain of favours already owed. "It is a personal matter. I will understand if you cannot." 

"Ask and we'll see." 

"There's someone that Vader may target because of me. He's entirely unrelated to the Order or Jedi matters, but Vader will not consider him so. He may seek him out to strike back at me." 

Bail frowns. "A... friend?" He says, and Obi-Wan realizes he's thinking a lover. 

"My brother," Obi-Wan senses the flash of Bail's surprise and adds hastily: "We've only met once. Anakin only knew about him because of some old holos. He's a farmer with a wife and he has no idea the danger he's in - "

"I'll take care of it," Bail says immediately, his easy acquiescence leaving Obi-Wan a little off-balance. "Are your parents alive? Do you want them retrieved as well?" 

"Yes," Obi-Wan says, realising with a sense of uneasy surprise that he hadn't given his mother or father a second thought. It was only Owa-San he had considered, the brother who'd resented and disliked him for things he couldn't help, and wanted things he couldn't give.  _You were my brother. I loved you._ For a moment he feels the heat of Mustafar on his skin, and flinches. Perhaps Anakin's fall didn't come from nowhere. Perhaps it was a weakness that Obi-Wan had passed on, or failed to quash because it lay within him too. Perhaps he'd never been a true Jedi either. 

Perhaps... perhaps there was no such thing as a true Jedi. 

But that was too painful a thought to contemplate. 

* * *

As the years pass, Obi-Wan begins to dream more and more of a lush green field. The air smells like summer, heavy with the murmur of bees. Sometimes he sees a red-haired boy playing the grass, transparent as mist. Later he's joined by a little girl. She is young at first, a toddler, but unlike her companion she grows gradually older with the passage of time. 

"You shouldn't bring him here," Obi-Wan tells her once when she's about six years old. "It's dangerous for him." 

She frowns, green eyes suspicious. "I didn't. He already knew the way." 

Obi-Wan shades his eyes to watch the ghostly boy picking his way through the grass. Sometimes he will follow Obi-Wan around, reaching up to balance himself on his brother's robes or tug his hand to show him things. Other times he will avoid him altogether. Today is looking like the latter. "Still. He doesn't have the control we have. You must be careful not to take him places he cannot follow." 

The girl nods seriously. "Like the bad place." 

"The bad place?" Obi-Wan kneels down to look at her more closely. "What is the bad place?" 

"It's cold and dark. I don't like it there." She leans in and whispers: "Sometimes it feels like someone's watching." 

Worried, Obi-Wan passes a hand over his beard. "When do you do when you're in the bad place?" 

"I make myself small, like hide and seek. Is that right?" 

"That's exactly right. They may talk to you, they may pretend they're your friend. But you must never answer. Not a single word. Or they'll find you." 

She nods again, like this makes sense to her. "Like the wuff-wum and the three little puggles. They'll eat us all up." 

Obi-Wan isn't familiar with that story, but it sounds about right. Being devoured is a concept she can understand and a close enough metaphor for what the Empire would do to a young talented Force-sensitive. 

"That's right." He pats her shoulder and she surprises him with a hug, just as Anakin once would. Then she runs to join the child-version of her father in the long grass. 

* * *

One night, Obi-Wan is pulled out of his ordinary dreams to the field.  

The little girl is not there but the little boy stands alone, frozen like a cornered prey animal, his eyes wide and frightened. 

"What's wrong?" Obi-Wan says, kneeling down and using the kindly tone he'd once reserved for upset younglings. For Anakin. "Owen, what's wrong? Where's May-Dra?" 

Then he sees the blood on the boy's tunic; rich red where the rest of him is thin enough to see through. 

"No," Obi-Wan says, reaching out (it is the first time, he will realise later, that he has reached for his brother and not been the one reached for). "Force, no. Not you too. Owen - "

Before he can touch him, the boy vanishes and in his place is a full grown man, solid and present in a way he's never been here before. He smiles at Obi-Wan wordlessly; peaceful and accepting. Then he

_goes_

* * *

Obi-Wan wakes with tears on his cheeks. 

The broken force-bond echoes agonizingly and he curls up under the shattered splinters. He thinks he could spend his whole life digging them out one by one and never find them all. 

 _My brother is dead,_  he thinks. Then:  _All my brothers are dead._


End file.
